Appendix: The Republic

Plato’s Republic

The most famous of Plato’s dialogues, The Republic is one of the most influential works in Western philosophy. It asks the overall question, How do we live a good life? Plato also questions the nature of justice in the State, what an ideal Republic should be, and what constitutes a just individual. In passing, he delves into questions about education, the relative value of the arts, the best form of government, who should govern, the nature of the soul, and what happens in the afterlife. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave states the case similar to Hindu philosophy that much of what we see in the world are illusory reflections of a deeper truth that we only glimpse. The Myth of Er, which closes The Republic, tells a fascinating story of a Greek soldier who had what amounts to a Near-Death Experience and returned to tell of a kind of way station between earth and the afterlife in which souls are rewarded or punished, and have a chance to choose the kind of life they will live next.